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Description
Was The Great Irish Famine an Ecological Disaster: Lessons for Policy Makers today? I Thursday 23 February I Dr. Alan Fernihough, Queen’s University Belfast
Alan is a Senior Lecturer in Queen’s Management School. His economic history research spans areas such as demography, economic growth, and international trade. In 2016, he was awarded the ESRC’s Future Research Leaders for his project The Causes and Consequences of the Great Irish Famine. Recent publications include: Population and Poverty in Ireland on the Eve of the Great Famine in Demography and Coal and the European Industrial Revolution in the Economic Journal.
A
Hello:
everyone
Welcome
to
our
talk
with
Dr
Alan
Fernie
Howe
from
Queen's
University
Belfast
Alan's
talk
tonight
is
was
a
great
Irish
famine,
an
ecological
disaster.
Lessons
for
policy
makers.
Today,
Allen
is
a
senior
lecturer
in
Queens
management,
School,
his
economic
history,
research
band
series
such
as
demography,
economic
growth
and
international
trade.
In
2016
he
was
awarded
the
es
Orcs
future
research
leaders,
first
project
the
causes
and
consequences
of
the
great
Irish
famine.
Recent
Publications
include
population
and
poverty
in
Ireland
on
the
eve
of
the
Great
Famine,
which
was
published
in
The
Economic
Journal
Alan.
B
Thank
you
very
much
Laura
and
thank
you
very
much
for
inviting
me
to
reintroduce
myself,
I'm
Alan
fernejo,
a
lecturer
here
in
the
management
School
in
Queens
Belfast
and
while
I've
looked
at
the
lineup
for
this
seminar
series.
There's
a
lot
of
historians
doing
amazing
historical
research,
and
this
might
come
as
a
disappointment
for
some
people.
B
But
my
research
is
for
the
majority
for
the
most
part,
quantitative
and
I,
loved
John
and
Emma's
talk
and
Liverpool
and
government
probably
look
at
the
Irish
in
England
in
the
next
few
years.
So
it
was
fantastic
and
looking
forward
to
looking
at
more
of
your
stuff,
but
poor,
John,
I
I,
don't
know
if
this
presentation
is
going
to
send
you
into
an
anaphylactic
shock
with
the
amount
of
Statistics
in
it.
B
I
realize
this
is
the
last
talk
in
the
series,
so
apologies.
If
I'm
going
over
all
ground
I
know,
there's
probably
people
in
the
audience
who
who
know
a
lot
more
about
the
topic
than
me.
I'm
learning
almost
every
day,
even
though
I've
been
researching
it
for
for
years,
then
I'm
going
to
talk
about
what
made
Ireland
particularly
vulnerable
to
the
the
parade
and
why
a
famine
occurred.
B
This
third
section
of
the
talk,
I'm
gonna,
talk,
I'm
going
to
bring
in
this
question,
and
people
mention
in
the
last
talk
of
how
do
you
measure
more
of
the
population,
loss
and
I?
Think
I've
got
a
pretty
good
way
of
disaggregating
mortality
in
civil
parishes
and
then,
if
you
can
disaggregate
mortality,
you
can
also
look
at
migration
and
population
loss
and
try
to
weigh
up
which
was
the
contributing
factor.
B
The
factors
that
shaped
Ireland's,
famine,
population
decline
and
then
in
the
fourth
section,
I'm
going
to
look
at
the
kind
of
longer
run
effect
of
the
famine
on
the
Irish
society
and
and
the
economy
with
some
insights
from
other
research.
That's
been
formed
in
this
area
and
some
of
my
own
Recent
research
I've
been
looking
at
the
Irish
language
and
the
decline
of
the
Irish
language
in
the
19th
century
over
the
last
few
months,
so
I'll
be
I'm
very
happy
to
share
some
of
my
findings
there.
B
That
involves
no
no
statistics
so
for
a
context
it
only
in
the
last
few
years,
we've
kind
of
with
advances
in
biology
biologists
and
geneticists
have
been
able
to
work
out
the
genetic
code
that
underlied
the
blight,
which
is
just
this
fungus-like
disease,
which
crossed
over
the
Atlantic
Ocean
in
the
1840s
and
devastated
Europe's
potato
crop,
while
Ireland
we
know,
was
severely
affected.
The
blight
starts
in
1845
there's
a
devastating
effect
in
1846.
B
1847
is
isn't
actually
a
bad
year
for
for
blight,
even
though
it's
Black
47.
However,
there
were
little
seed
potatoes
and
the
damage
was
really
done
by
that
stage.
So
the
polite
was
devastating
for
Ireland's
potato
crop,
but
Ireland
wasn't
unique
in
when
we
look
at
countries
and
regions
throughout
northern
Europe.
B
We
can
see
that
if
we
compare
Ireland,
which
is
in
the
blue
bars
to
you,
know
the
multi-rainbow
colored
all
other
countries.
Population
loss
is
negative
in
everywhere
else,
basically
because
their
populations
are
growing
due
to
the
Industrial
Revolution.
However,
Ireland
hemorrhages
people
in
the
late
1840s
because
of
the
famine
and
this
hemorrhaging
of
population
continues
after
the
famine,
so
there's
no
rebound
so
what
makes
Ireland
so
susceptible
to
to
the
famine.
So
the
potato
blight
hits
Ireland
particularly
hard.
B
Growing
regions
in
Ireland,
but
surprisingly
County
Down
is,
is
actually
the
highest
potato
growing
region,
albeit
the
potatoes
they're,
primarily
grown
for
for
export,
and
if
you
do
a
scatter
plot
of
potatoes
per
acre
on
the
x-axis
and
population
change
on
the
y-axis
and
try
to
see
if
there's
some
correlation,
a
relationship
between
these
two
things.
The
trend
line
that
fits
through
them
is
essentially
gives
you
zero
explanatory
power.
So
what
we
see
is
obviously
in
Dublin.
Quite
a
lot
of
potatoes
are
actually
grown
in
Dublin
Dublin.
B
So
lots
of
farmers
have
less
than
one
acre,
which
is
a
very
small
area
of
land.
So
you
have
this
extreme
distribution,
which,
in
kind
of
modern
economic
terms,
you'd
be
talking
about
income
inequality,
and
you
typically
see
the
poorest
countries
in
the
world
have
extreme
levels
of
income
inequality
with
a
kind
of
small
Elite
holding
most
of
the
wealth.
We
see
it
in
kind
of
across
Western,
wealthy
countries
too,
but
not
to
the
same
extent.
B
Man
Ireland
is
probably
more
comparable
to
a
very
at
least
developing
country
today,
so
pre
Farm
in
Ireland
is
on
arguably
poor
and
in
a
very
precarious
position
to
give
an
insight
into
what
daily
life
was
like
and
what
people
might
see
as
well.
You
know
the
question
of
how
you
measure
poverty
and
what
it
means
to
be
poor
is
a
very
difficult
one
to
to
to
to
to
begin
to
quantify,
but
this
image
gives
an
overview.
I.
B
Think
of
I
mean
there's
been
reconstructions
of
the
motorhot
people
used
to
live
in,
but
this
is
actually
a
real
photo
from
I
found
an
Ulster
Folk
Museum,
and
it
shows
like
the
standard
of
housing
that
people
had
at
the
time
we
have
a
kind
of
thatch
roof.
This
is
actually
probably
a
good
house
because
it's
it's
Stone
rather
than
rather
than
mud,
but
you
can
see
it's
very
it's
very
small
now,
the
next
image
so
the
so.
B
What
we
do
in
the
paper
I
published
last
year
and
I'd
been
writing
for
years
before
was
trying
to
understand
our
shape.
Our
kind
of
trace,
the
Contours
of
Irish
poverty,
using
the
best
available
data
and
I
rely
on
the
1841
census,
which,
in
the
previous
session
people
had
talked
as
might
have
been
deficient.
B
B
With
one
being
the
best
houses
owned
by
typically
the
landlord
class
or
business
class,
and
then
the
fourth
class
housing
was
was
like
windowless
mode
cabins,
and
we
can
see
that
the
image
here
it
Bears
a
striking
East-West
resemblance
that
feeds
into
probably
what
our
preconceptions
of
what
prefamine
Ireland
was
like
this,
the
West
Was
poorer
than
the
than
the
East,
but
we
see
also
see
a
variation
between
paraces.
So
sometimes
you
see
civil
parishes,
which
is
how
I'm
mapping
this
here.
B
B
So
the
question
of
whether
you
acquired
literacy-
in
this
case
it
would
have
been
people
who
went
to
school
before
the
national
schooling
system
and
the
inference
we're
using
to
do.
Is
that
not
that
you
know
becoming
literate.
Literate
is
kind
of
like
this
protective
Source
on
poverty,
but
it's
rather
than
that.
Your
parents
had
the
means
to
send
you
to
school
from
a
an
early
age,
and
we
see
again
a
very
similar
pattern
emerging
with
an
East-West
gradient.
B
But
striking
differences
between
areas,
some
of
these
differences
in
illiteracy
are
due
to
Irish,
Irish
speaking
and
and
we
we
try
to
incorporate
that
into
our
understanding
of
of
the
of
the
famine
and
if
you
would
be,
if
you
would
wonder
whether
illiteracy
and
Ford
pass
housing
go
together
and
the
answer
that
is
is
yes,
so
it
they
tended
to
go
together.
So
areas
where
illiteracy
was
high,
typically
had
lots
of
fourth
class
houses.
B
We
can
measure
the
strength
of
this
relationship
using
a
standard
model
and
I've
just
put
the
fitted
trend
line
into
the
characterize
it
there
and
you
see
a
very
strong
correlation.
There
are
some
exceptions,
places
where
there's
high
levels
of
illiteracy,
but
no
forecast
housing.
These
would
typically
be
cities,
but
by
and
large
the
the
two
hold,
and
with
that
I
was
able
to
generate
a
poverty
score
for
each
civil
Parish
in
Ireland.
B
B
Now
the
the.
If
you,
if
you
the
the
way
we
Define
population,
is
also
problematic.
If
you
think
about
population
today,
typically,
population
density
is
associated
with
wealth,
because
people
move
to
cities
and
urban
environments,
and
the
same
is
true
a
little
bit
to
a
to
a
little
bit
of
an
extent
in
in
pre-farm
in
Ireland,
and
this
is
where
I
I
contrast.
Two
maps
here
on
the
left
hand
left
hand
side,
we've
got
population
per
acre
and
we
can
see.
B
There's
actually
a
very
Arma,
Monahan
and
and
carbon
are
very
densely
populated
during
this
area,
where
there's
a
big
kind
of
cottage
industry
in
in
in
in
spinning
and
so
on,
but
Dublin
is,
is
heavily
populated.
Belfast
is
heavily
populated
and
and
under
cities.
Now
they
are
not.
They
are
not
prices
you
would
say,
are
typically
or
would
see
as
being
under
pressure
in
a
kind
of
conventional
agricultural
sense.
B
So
if
lots
of
people
like
a
good
example
here
is
in
the
Wicklow
mountains,
I
don't
know
if
people
can
see
my
my
mouse
that
I'm
pointing
yet
in
the
Wicklow
Mountains
they're,
very
underpopulated,
but
obviously
No
One's
Gonna
live
in
the
Sally
Gap,
because
it's
a
huge
it's
a
huge
mountain
range
you're
not
going
to
be
able
to
grow
anything
there.
So
they're
underpopulated,
when
you
look
at
population
per
acre,
but
when
it
comes
to
population
pressure
on
puppy,
they
actually
look
somewhat
overpopulated.
B
You
know
because
this
is
an
uninhabited,
Mountain,
okay
and
the
distinction
between
East
and
West
changes
when
we
look
at
population
pressure,
as
defined
by
population
per
quality,
adjusted
land
where
Mayo
becomes
very
overpopulated.
If
you
want
to
use
that
term
and
but
I
I,
don't
think
it's
an
accurate
one,
but
we'll
get
on
to
that
that
soon
the
distinction
is
clear
when
we
try
to
look
at
segregating
population
pressure
and
poverty
and
get
a
correlation
between
the
two
measures.
B
So
this
this
graph
here
charts
me
on
the
x-axis
increasing
the
amount
of
population
pressure
over
the
10
desiles
of
data,
so
I've
chopped
the
data
into
10
going
from
the
areas
which
are
least
Under
Pressure.
These
are
typically
you
know
the
the
cities
and
and
so
on.
These
are
the
least
under
pressure
and
then,
as
you
increase
the
population
pressure,
we
see
the
poverty
score
going
from
around
25
to
over
75..
B
So
this
kind
of
fits
with
the
malthusian
story
that
was
like
poverty
seems
to
go
hand
in
hand
with
overpopulation.
When
we
look
at
density,
the
opposite
is
true:
where
places
that
have
high
population
density
actually
have
low
poverty,
that's
a
function
of
just
the
the
cities,
so
it
looks
like
a
from
the
red
line,
the
population
to
pressure.
It
looks
like
there's
a
kind
of
malthusian
the
marthusian
explanation
for
pre-fum
and
poverty
in
Ireland
has
been
revived
so
much.
B
However,
there's
always
a
catch
in
the
world
is
a
lot
more
complicated
than
certainly
even
the
most
complex
economic
models
would
ever
suggest,
and
while
we
see
population
pressure
and
poverty
varying
spatially
going
from
east
to
west,
typically
with
some
exceptions
in
certain
places,
there
are
lots
of
differences
between
those
parishes
that
vary
from
east
and
west.
On
the
left
hand,
side
I
have
a
map
showing
Irish
speaking,
which
I've
I've
used
Garrett
Fitzgerald
researched
Irish
language
in
the
1980s.
B
At
the
time
he
was
t-shirt
of
Ireland
as
well,
so
he
was
kind
of
trying
to
juggle
his
work
as
a
politician
with
also
his
interest.
In
you
know,
historical
censuses,
which
is
is
is
strange,
but
he
we
use
his
method
from
the
yeah
and
I.
Actually
I've
collected
the
1901
census,
so
I
have
everyone
and
I
know
whether
I
can
speak
Irish
and
I
know
where
they
live.
So
I
was
able
to
create
a
good
map
of
Irish
speaking
by
using
really
really
old.
B
The
other
measure
I
have,
which
is
another
potential
explanatory
factor
which
would
explain
why
places
are
some
places,
are
poor
and
others
are
not
is
Market
access,
so
another
project
that
I've
been
involved
in
and
I
I've
actually
put
up.
Some
maps
today
and
I'm
going
to
share
them
later
with
people
in
the
chat.
If
you
want
to
have
a
look,
but
it's
a
map
of
every
railway
station
in
in
Ireland
over
the
19th
century.
B
I
also
spent
way
too
long,
digitizing
Ireland's
entire
Road
Network
and
with
the
purpose
of
doing
like
what
Google
Maps
do
for
transport
today,
so
I
have
every
Waterway
every
roadway,
every
Railway
when
the
railway
is
constructed
and
I
can
see
how
you
can
go
from
A
to
B.
So
for
each
Parish
in
Ireland,
you're
able
to
say
how
connected
it
is
and
what
we
can
see.
B
The
picture
that
emerges
is
Dublin
is
obviously
very
connected
to
everywhere
else,
because
it's
got
the
best
roads,
best,
waterways,
Belfast,
but
part
of
the
again
this
East-West
gradient.
You
have
places
that
are
very
remote,
disconnected
from
everywhere
else.
Now
on
to
the
modeling
I'm
not
going
to
go
through
too
much
I'm
not
going
to
go
heavily
through
the
modeling,
because
I
know
people
probably
won't
be
interested
in.
If
people
want
me
to
elaborate
on
things
in
the
questions,
I
will
do.
B
The
main
takeaway
from
this
slide
is
that
the
model
that
I
was
able
to
build
actually
did
a
pretty
good
good
job.
Explaining
poverty.
Population
pressure
does
explain
some
of
the
differences
in
in
poverty.
We
see
in
Ireland.
Now
we
can
have
an
argument
about
whether
lots
of
people
being
on
land
actually
indicates
population
pressure.
B
What
I
mean
here
is
the
places
that
were
supposedly
under
population
pressure
in
1821
they're
down
here.
They
actually
experience
a
stunning
population
decline
before
the
famine.
Okay.
So
if
the
famine
was
this
idea
that
it
was
this
kind
of
catastrophic
malthusian
shock
just
simply
due
to
population,
this
net
extremely
negative
relationship-
we
see
here
just
doesn't
make
any
sense.
B
So
it
kind
of
refutes
this
overpopulation
hypothesis
and
quite
strongly,
and
we
also
see
population
pressure
in
the
least
Under
Pressure
places
population
is
growing
by
a
lot,
so
the
Irish
population
is
actually
able
to
reorientate
itself
in
the
19th
century
in
in
a
way
that
suggests
it
was
far
more
flexible
than
others.
What
I
got
asked
to
do?
B
Demographic
interviews
now,
people
that
ask
me
about
overpopulation
and
fertility,
and
is
the
population
of
the
world
growing,
is
too
big
and
so
on
and
a
big
big
misconception
that
people
have
about
population
growth
over
the
last
50
years
in
the
world.
Is
that
populations
have
not
it's
not
grown,
because
people
are
having
more
children.
B
The
population
in
the
world
is
growing
because
people
are
dying
that
often
and
well
some
people
might
disagree,
but
I
think
that's
a
good
thing,
and
so
it
draws
us
to
the
question
of
well
whether
was
fertility
too
high.
You
know
where
these
were
these
Irish
people
having
too
many
too
many
children,
okay
and
I,
am
able
to
with
the
1841
census,
have
some
measure
of
fertility
where
we
get
to
see
in
parishes.
B
B
Sorry
I'm
trying
to
skip
ahead,
so
the
next
section
and
thing
I
want
to
talk
about
is
something
I've
been
doing
over
the
last
few
weeks
and
it's
trying
to
understand
what
shaped
population
change
between
80
and
41
and
51..
We
know
there's
two
channels.
Well,
we
can
talk
about
births
and
averted
Birds,
that's
a
complex
area
that
I
don't
really
want
to
get
into,
but
by
and
large,
the
majority
of
Irish
depopulation
that
occurs
between
1841
and
51
is
farm
and
driven
and
there's
two
channels,
migration
and
mortality.
B
So
can
you
distinguish
between
the
two
well
Joe
moclare
in
18
1983?
How
to
go
with
this?
He
was
able
to
back
out
what
he
saw:
famine,
death
rates,
mortality
rates
from
the
two
censuses
and
by
making
some
assumptions
about
migration.
So
the
idea
is
that
in
a
county
you
get
to
see
how
many
people
were
there
in
1841.
You
get
to
see
how
many
people
were
there
in
1851
and
you
have.
B
If
you
have
a
good
measure
of
how
many
people
migrated,
then
the
residual
what's
left
over
must
have
been
people,
people
dying
and
unsurprisingly,
what
mokia
found
is
again.
Conduct
hit,
particularly
badly
monster,
hit
badly
Dublin
also
hit
badly,
but
that's
maybe
to
be
expected
because
you
have
work,
houses
and
people
being
attracted
into
the
cities
and
and
dying.
B
If
you
look
at
farm
and
migration
and
this
I'm
using
data
from
cormacograda
Kevin
O'rourke's
paper
in
1997.,
we
see
a
distinct
difference
in
migration
versus
versus
mortality
and
Mayo
comes
across
a
poorly
almost
all
the
time.
But
you
get
to
see
in
Uma,
Monahan
and
cavan,
so
just
make
sure
I'm
getting
the
the
counties
right.
I
know
Monahan
is
the
exact
same
shape
as
Iraq?
That's
the
the
Arctic
IRS
Youth
and
Tyrone.
B
These
actually
had
well
in
relative
terms
low
mortality
rates,
but
they
had
quite
High
migration
rates
and
similarly,
we
get
is
it
half
a
year
and
least
as
high
migration,
but
actually
relatively
lower
mortality?
So
where
the
idea
here
is,
are
these
two
threes
trading
off
against
each
other
and
could
the
worst
of
the
famine
in
terms
of
mortality
be
averted
by
higher
levels
of
migration?
B
The
evidence
on
a
county
level
for
this
seems
to
be
quite
weak
and
poor,
and
you
see
if
you
try
to
build
a
model
to
explain
farm
and
death
rates
as
a
function
of
migration
if
they
were
trading
off
against
each
other.
We'd
see
this
kind
of
downward
slope,
a
downward
sloping
line
where
counties
with
high
high
death
rates
have
low
migration
and
and
vice
versa.
But
again
this
just
looks
like
a
sky,
a
kind
of
a
shotgun
blast
of
points
like
it's
just
looks.
It
looks
completely
random.
B
The
two
aren't
related:
you
see
Dublin,
even
though
the
population
in
Dublin
grows.
It
doesn't
experience
Mass
immigration,
because
people
migrate
on
that
into
the
city,
but
at
quite
a
high
famine,
death
rate.
So
there
are,
there
doesn't
seem
to
be
a
trade-off
occurring
and
debt
or
mortality
during
family
seems
to
be
more
of
a
leveler.
B
B
But
for
now
we
have
a
good
idea
in
Ireland
in
1847,
with
the
temporary
relief
act,
where
people
were
claiming
outdoor
relief
during
the
lean
months
of
1847
as
part
of
the
kind
of
last
of
the
British
government's
attempt
to
provide
kind
of
centralized
relief
measures
and
you'll
notice
that
this
map
Bears
a
striking
resemblance
to
the
mortality
rate.
So
once
I
saw
this
I
said
this
seems
to
be
indicating
mortality
that
the
amount
the
share
of
the
population
are
where
Russian
demand
was
highest,
seem
to
be
the
parishes
and
districts.
B
So
this
is
District
data
turned
into
parishes.
They
seem
to
be
the
ones
that
experience
the
highest
levels
of
mortality.
So
this
got
me
thinking.
Could
you
use
this
to
project
mortality
and
migration
at
a
Paris
level?
Doing
this
kind
of
thing?
It's
only
it's
a
model
and
an
estimate.
So
it's
potentially
some
error.
This
is
what
pollsters
do
when
they
try
to
forecast
constituencies
in
general
elections,
because
you're
only
dealing
with
a
sample
size
of
a
few
thousand
people,
not
the
entire
electorate.
B
What
they
will
do
is
they
will
sample
a
thousand
people
and
their
characteristics,
be
it
socio-demographics,
age
and
so
on,
and
then
they
will
project
it
onto
a
parishes
and
that's
what
I'm
trying
to
do
here
to
to
model
to
so
that
I
was
I.
I
I
I
thought
that
the
the
soup
kitchen
data
actually
spoke
to
this
idea.
You
could
build
a
model
of
famine,
death
based
on
places
where
people
are
claiming
super
Russians
and
it
seems
to
be
the
case
if
you
look
at
the
county
level
data.
B
B
So
what
I
did
was
I
used?
This
information
and
I
used
the
trend
line
that
I
fitted
here
in
Broad
terms
to
project
mortality
and
migration
onto
the
parishes
and
what
the
picture
that
emerges,
I
think
is,
is
quite
striking.
You
get
to
see
again
Mayo
very
badly
hit.
You
get
to
see
differences
between
parishes,
so
it
go.
This
picture
goes
beyond
what
mokir
was
able
to
do
based
on
32
counties.
B
Monahan
has
quite
very
high
levels
of
migration
and
similarly
northmead
and
and
and
Calvin,
but
also
you
know
the
west
of
Ireland
as
well,
because
you
know
the
population
fell
by
the
most.
So
the
question
then
becomes:
what's
the
domination,
what's
the
dominating
source
of
population
change?
Is
it
people
dying?
Is
it
people
migrating?
B
And
you
can
see
in
this
map
the
blue
regions,
our
parishes,
where
the
majority
of
the
population
now
could
be
explained
by
migration
and
the
red
ones
are
aware,
mortality
mortality
was
was
was
was
higher
and
with
a
few
green
parishes
where
the
population
actually
increased
between
1841
and
51..
So
that's
a
rather
striking
picture.
B
If
you
try
and
put
this
into
a
model
and
explain
population
change
between
1941
and
51
and
assign
weights
and
what's
more
important,
migration
explains
most
of
the
population
change.
In
fact,
96
percent
of
the
population
change
is
accounted
for.
Differences
in
migration.
Now
before
people
jump
down
my
throat
and
and
say
I'm,
a
I'm,
a
famine,
denier
or
anything
I
just
want
to
iterate
that
I
I'm
not
saying
that
migration
that
mortality
was
was
low
or
not
significant.
B
B
The
other
thing
that
I
tried
to
do
was
to
explain
mortality
and
migration
as
a
function
of
explanatory
factors
and
I
found
this
very
interesting
anyway.
The
biggest
predictor
of
where
mortality
is
strongest
is
the
level
of
poverty
in
the
area
you're
talking
about
almost
two-thirds
of
the
the
variation
or
the
differences
that
we
can
model
with.
B
The
data
come
from
differences
in
poverty,
where
the
same
isn't
true
for
migration,
it
seems
like
population
pressure
exerts,
more
influence
there,
and
this
probably
speaks
to
this
idea
that
migration
was
for
those
who
could
afford
to
get
out.
So
obviously,
there's
a
poverty
trap
and
the
poverty
trap
prevented
people
people
from
leaving.
So
these
are.
These
are
preliminary
results.
I've
only
been
doing
them
in
the
last
few
weeks,
so
that's
hopefully
gives
an
insight
into
how
Ireland
was
shaped
during
the
Famine
of
the
population.
B
What
about
afterwards?
What
can
we
learn
about
the
population
afterwards?
Well,
what
work
recently,
probably
well,
not
a
2016
paper
by
Ian
Gregory
and
his
co-author
Cunningham
looked
at
the
1834
religious
census
and
the
1861
census,
which
did
survey
religion
as
well.
18,
21,
31
and
41
didn't
survey
religion
and
what
they
find
is
is
very
striking
when
it
comes
to
religious
demography.
B
Now
the
famine
we
saw-
and
we
know
that
the
west
of
Ireland,
which
is
you
know,
pretty
much
100
Catholic-
was
the
the
worst
hit
so
they're,
obviously
suffering
the
most,
but
in
terms
of
shaping
the
share
of
the
population
that
is
Catholic.
The
famine
didn't
seem
to
do
an
awful,
an
awful
lot
and
you
see
areas
that
are
very
highly
Catholic
in
1834
are
also
very
highly
Catholic
in
1861,
and
that
just
speaks
to
this
idea.
That
say,
for
instance,
your
Parish
or
sorry.
B
Your
diocese,
which
is
these,
are
the
units
of
observation.
If
your
diocese
is
100
Catholic
in
1834,
it's
probably
going
to
be
100
Catholic
in
1861..
So,
while
you
know
the
religious,
there
are
probably
religious
differences
when
it
comes
to
making
a
death
toll
overall
in
terms
of
shaping
the
shares,
the
famine
didn't
do
a
lot.
B
The
next
area
that
I
wanted
to
look
at
is
whether
the
famine
had
a
long
run
effect
on
Irish,
Irish
speaking
so
I've
gone
and
got
the
ninth.
My
my
1901
census
and
I've
mapped
out
districts
in
Ireland
and
overlapping
10-year
birth
intervals,
and
what
we
can
see
is
that
between
18
people
born
between
18
21
and
31,
there's
this
kind
of
Frontier
of
Irish
speaking
and
over
the
over
the
years.
Over
these
10-year
intervals.
B
We
see
this
Frontier
slowly,
shifting
further
and
further
westwards
with
pockets
and
Water
by
the
end
pockets
in
Waterford
a
little
bit
in
Tyrone
west
of
Donegal
west
of
west
of
Galway
west
of
Kerry
west
of
cork.
By
the
end,
where
there
are
kind
of
areas
that
are
Irish
majority
speaking,
whereas
basically
the
whole
County
of
Waterford,
nearly
all
the
county,
County,
Cork
and
Mayo
before
the
famine
were,
were
Irish
speaking
or
had
Irish
speaking
ability.
B
So
that
brings
me
to
the
question
of
whether
the
famine
actually
contributed
to
the
decline
in
Irish
speaking.
This
graph
here
shows
on
the
x-axis.
It's
the
population
change.
So
the
points
are
the
data
points
you
see
here.
Are
the
districts
and
they're
measured
in
terms
of
how
much
the
population
changed
due
to
the
famine
and
how
much
the
irish-speaking
population
declined
between
1840
to
1841
to
21
birth
code.
B
If
I
ever
get
the
motivation
to
fully
ride
it,
but
the
new
paper,
where
we
look
at
actually
the
strongest
determinant
of
Irish
decline
in
the
20th
century
or
sorry
19th
century
was
education
and
the
emergence
of
schooling
and
interesting.
It's
not
the
national
skills,
but
it's
actually
schools
that
were
in
place
before
the
national
schooling
system,
which
seems
strongly
most
strongly
associated
with
I'm,
not
going
to
talk
about
it
anymore.
People
can
ask
me
questions
in
the
meantime,
because
I
know
we're
stuck
for
we're
stuck
for
time.
B
The
other
thing
that's
peculiar
about
Ireland
is
that
the
population
doesn't
recover,
so
here's
an
image
just
showing
that
it's
adapted
from
Angus
Madison's
research.
We
see
the
gray
lines
here.
Our
Western
European
counterparts,
the
green
line,
is
Northern
Ireland.
The
blue
line
is
what
became
Northern
Ireland.
B
I
have
some
because
I
this
presentation
was
supposed
I
was
supposed
to
touch
on
policy.
Relevant
findings
now
I'm,
always
very,
very
reluctant
to
say
that
there's
you
can
apply
a
cut
and
paste
approach
to
just
take
a
historical
precedent
and
say
it
has
to
hold
in
the
modern
day.
I
think
that's
and
I
don't
think
any
historians
do
that's
a
that's
a
kind
of
a
you'd
never
use
that
as
a
a
it's,
a
real
straw,
man
kind
of
argument
to
kind
of
point
to
any
historian.
B
A
financial
panic
in
1847
and
the
Panic
is
part
of
this
kind
of
is
motivation
for
reducing
the
the
British
government's
relief
efforts,
and
then
they
are
seen
to
go
on
this
strict
diet
of
a
fiscal
discipline
and
it
takes
down
the
price
of
of
debt,
which
you
know
you
know,
maybe
maybe
that's
a
good
thing
if
they're
balancing
their
books
or
getting
their
house
in
order.
So
looking
at
this,
this
look
might
look
like.
It
was
a
a
worthwhile
thing
to
do,
but
you
have
to
remember
the
Irish.
B
Famine
was
a
humanitarian
disaster.
The
Irish
population
accounted
for
30
percent
of
the
United
Kingdom
population
at
the
time.
But
if
you
take
a
wider
approach
to
look
at
the
price
of
government
debt,
how
much
it
basically
costs
to
borrow
for
the
British
government,
you
can
see
that
the
financial
panic
and
the
price
of
debt
spiraling
out
of
control
in
the
famine
in
a
wider
historical
context.
B
It
was
actually
small
relative
to
when
it
comes
to
spending
money
on
Napoleonic
Wars
and
any
of
that
kind
of
any
of
that
kind
of
thing,
and
the
price
of
data
and
the
debt
to
GDP
ratio
was
actually
declining
declining
at
the
time.
So
that's
more
of
a
indication
that
they
probably
had
more
wiggle
room
to.
You
know
not
pull
back
the
relief
efforts
as
strongly
as
they
as
they
did
so
in
a
humanitarian
crisis.
B
B
So
the
UK
government
did
that
they
spent
money
on.
You
know,
programs
like
track
and
Trace,
which
are
you
know
billions
and
what
they
did
to
me
doesn't
seem
like
they
did,
did
a
lot
in
terms
of
being
able
to
stop
people
and
get
sick
or
or
die
during
the
pandemic,
and
that
long
run
trajectory.
If
they
were,
you
know
projecting
down
in
the
future.
It
just
flipped
instantly,
and
you
have
this
huge
spike
in
the
price
of
debt,
which
is
kind
of
now.
B
The
price
of
that
has
has
risen
substantially,
they're
substantial
inflation.
So
the
idea
that
you
know
you
could
just
take
the
IRS
famine
example
and
just
kind
of
like
transplant
it
to
the
modern
areas.
Yeah,
you
must
do
everything
you
can,
rather
than
ultimately
think
about
the
policy
decisions
that
you
can
do
and
whether
they
they
ultimately
make
sense
like
you
know.
B
So
it's
not
for
me
to
comment
on
what
what
worked
or
what,
what
didn't,
but
just
trying
to
extrapolate
Trends
and
try
and
apply
them
to
historical
contexts,
is
obviously
different.
Historical
contexts
in
different
modern
contexts
is
obviously
very
problematic
and
going
to
leave
you
in
it's
a
failure,
no
historian
to
fall
into
it,
but
I
thought
it
would
be
it's
an
interesting
parallel
where
today
and
potentially
the
Irish
famine.
The
last
thing
I
want
to
finish
with
is
that
something
I
was
thinking
about
recently
when
I
was
at
a.
B
This
interactive
thing
they
have-
and
it's
this
is
famous
painting
by
Van
Gogh
starry
night
yeah
I
know
more
starry
night
is
like
the
Peggy
goo
song,
but
the
starry
night
is
a
Vincent
van
Gogh
work.
He
did
this
when
he
was
in
an
asylum
and
the
swirls
that
we
see
here
in
this
kind
of
Masterpiece
were
actually
inspired
by
the
Earl
of
Rose
William
Parsons,
who
was
a
world
famous
astronomer
and
he
drew
this
in
18
forces
from
an
1845
textbook.
B
So
during
the
famine
he
drew
this-
and
this
is
said
to
I,
don't
know,
but
I
read
some
I
read
somewhere
that
it
seems
to
be
plausible.
That
van
Gogh
was
inspired
by
this
and
was
able
to
influ
it
influenced
him
in
his
painting
of
a
depiction
of
starry
starry
night
now
who
was
with
William
Parsons
up
here's
his
this
isn't
a
cannon
for
shooting
poor
peasants
on
his
land.
It's
actually
a
giant
a
giant
telescope
cast.
B
It
cost
him
in
today's
money
over
a
million
pounds
which
it's
very
hard
to
get
kind
of
modern
figures
of
money.
But
the
idea
why
he
was
able
to
make
such
a
fantastic,
astronomical
discoveries
was
that
he
was
extremely
wealthy,
so
he
was
a
big
landlord
in
Burr
County
awfully
which
is
Parsons
Town
Kings
County
at
the
time,
and
he
was
able
with
this
telescope
that
no
one
else
could
afford
to
see
further
than
no
one
else
has
seen
now
interesting
enough.
B
Now,
while
it
is
true,
he
was
under
relief
measures
of
the
Parsons
Town
workhouse
Andres
Erickson
who's,
a
historian
who's
looked
at
workhouses
and
gone
through
work
as
records
paints,
a
very
different
depiction
from
Simon
Singh
and
for
Anders
Erickson
details
how
the
Earl
of
Rose,
William
Parsons
actually
didn't
really
win.
The
workouts.
All
that
well
frequently
didn't
attend.
Meetings
filled
the
board
of
Guardians
with
his
friends
and
cronies,
and
yes,
man
denied
a
relief
to
the
most
needy.
B
The
person
sound
workouts
experienced
very
substantial
levels
of
of
mortality.
So
far
from
being
this,
you
know
Mother
Teresa,
like
figure
he
he
was
actually
probably
probably
had
a
a
negative
effect
and
I
think
it's
just
an
interesting
example
to
finish
with,
because
it
kind
of
highlights
the
contrast
between
the
halves
and
Have
Nots
of
the
mid
19th
century,
the
Ireland,
which
is
kind
of
like
one
of
the
key
underlying
factors
to
why
the
famine
was
so
devastating,
such
a
devastating
humanitarian
crisis.
B
B
A
Thanks
very
much
Alan
Alan.
Would
you
share
that
survey
link
on
your
Twitter
with
me
and
I'll
forward
it
to
everybody
by
with
by
email
as
well?
That's,
okay,
because
for
those
who
aren't
here
live
tonight
and
for
the
recording
when
I
send
them
through
the
through
the
link
to
the
recording
I,
also
in
my
email
will
be
adding
in
the
link
for
the
survey
Etc.
A
B
A
A
Build
that
is
outstanding,
yeah
and
the
photographs,
of
course,
could
can't
do.
Photographs
are
impressive
but
to
see
it
in
person.
You
know
it's
on
another
level,
because
it
is
so
big
for
this
period
in
time.
So
I
would
recommend
anybody
interested
in
that
area
and
I
just
actually
stumbled
across
it,
Wonder
You
Know
by
chance,
but
extremely
impressive.
So
at
a
time
of
such
poverty.
A
C
A
Can
find
too,
you
know,
but
Andre
I'll.
Look
him
up.
You
mentioned
in
your
talk
about.
You
mentioned
it.
Oh
sorry,
if
security
comes
back
to
the
poverty
trap
and
where
a
certain
amount
of
people
simply-
and
this
is
this-
has
come
up
from
previous
talks
in
the
series-
the
poverty
trap
and
economy,
some
people
simply
could
not
afford
to
emigrate.
They
had
not
the
resources
to
access
the
funds
to
actually
emigrate
to
yeah.
C
D
D
A
couple
of
things
you
mentioned
there
and
I
think
you
know
the
thing
about
it:
models
are
experimental
better
than
nature.
You
know
they
get
they.
It
all
depends
are
saying
earlier
on.
Sources
are
everything
at
the
same
in
with
models.
It's
your
data,
that's
everything!
Just
look
at
you
mentioned
candidates
Kennedy
at
all
and
their
their
latest
book.
The
death
centers,
but
I've
I've
gone
through
that
for
20
later,
and
you
know
it
accounts
for
10.
D
D
Interesting
that
you
know,
particularly
in
Ulster
the
soup
kitchen
data,
is
a
severe
underestimate
of
the
extent
to
which
people
were
depend
on
relief,
because
in
some
areas
that
the
spiritual
you
know
a
lot
of
it
just
came
down
to
you
know
Financial
issues
and
also
this
question
of
Ulster
Pride.
Do
you
find
that
in
areas
and
East
and
east
of
the
province,
particularly
like
the
likes
and
large
there's
burn,
there
were
loads?
D
Haven't
acknowledged
that
there
was
poverty
in
the
area
so,
for
example,
lisburn
early
Union?
The
workhouse
is
in
debt
from
much
of
1847
and
the
1848,
despite
the
fact
that
the
Guardians
secured
a
2
000
2
000,
pound
private
loan
tank,
so
the
material
that
I've
accessed
goes
alongside
the
soup
kitchen
data
and
shows
that
there
were
areas
where
there
were
dozens,
hundreds
and
maybe
a
thousand
people
in
different
areas
who
were
receiving
relief
outside
the
official
British
government
scheme.
D
D
So
that's
very
interesting
and
one
of
the
things
I
mean
and
I
I,
don't
know
what
happened
to
my
my
screen,
but
I
couldn't
see
any
of
your
Maps,
but
I
will
I'll
watch
it
again
in
the
video
it
was
killing
me
as
I
was
listening
to
you
because
I
just
thought.
Oh,
my
God
I
need
to
see
this
stuff,
but
you
know
I've
come,
for
example,
I've
gone
through
the
town
lands
in
Ulster
from
1841
to
51,
so
there's
what
16,
156,
thailands
and
I've
gone
through
each
one
of
those
estimate
you're.
D
Looking
at
the
decline,
the
increase
the
there
were,
there
were
increases
in
Thailand
and
those
with
no
change
and
Donegal
comes
out
as
the
the
county,
which
suffered
the
least
amount
of
time
land
increase,
in
other
words,
the
amount
of
Thailand
at
the
2115
and
1894
decreased,
which
was
70.
I,
have
to
get
too
much
in
the
stats
72.4,
which
was
the
least
out
of
the
nine
counties.
D
Monahan
was
the
worst
at
92,
and
yet,
when
you
go
through
the
papers
of
the
Society
of
France,
for
example,
and
other
relief
agencies
in
Ulster
there's
a
good
50,
maybe
60
percent
of
all
the
material
being
sent
through
letters
are
asking
for
Relief
outline
into
the
distress
and
errors
comes
from
Donegal.
So
it's
it's
trying
to
understand.
Well,
Donegal
was
so
badly
hit
there,
and
this
is
one
thing
that
I'm
really
struggling
with.
Then
it
doesn't
seem
to
be
not
bad
in
terms
of
population
loss.
D
The
population
lost
in
Donegal
was
nothing
compared
to
that
and
from
Anna
and
Calvin,
for
example.
So
I
think
your
paper
opens
up
so
many
opportunities
you're
talking
about
disaggregate
mortality
and
immigration.
It
opens
up
so
many
possibilities
in
terms
of
further
research
and
enhancing
researchers
already.
A
D
Is
coming
in
sorry,
sorry,
Arma
for
a
minute
yeah.
So
in
my
line,
you've
1875
Thailand
of
those
1722
saw
decline
in
population
which
is
92
7,
so
an
increase
in
population
and
the
remainder
was
no
change,
and
then
this
is
I'm
like
what
I
was
doing
Earth.
This
is
a
work
in
progress,
but
in
Monahan
there
were
nine
thailands,
which
saw
a
hundred
percent
wipe
out
of
population,
so
you've
got
afterno
Mullen,
which
was
187
persons
in
1841
zero
in
1851.
D
No,
it's
not
as
simple
as
everybody
being
wiped
out
or
you
know,
immigration
out.
There
are
variations
between
Thailand,
but
it's
another
way
of
estimating
what
was
happening
within
counties
within
parishes
and
I've,
obviously
built
it
up
to
within
the
province.
You
know
so
it's
it's
another
aspect
of
research.
D
A
D
D
Known
where
they
are
I
mean
I
remember
when
I
was
doing
my
work
on
beach
room,
that
I
was
talking
to
a
man
who
said
that
there
were
two
Town
lands,
one
suffered
really
badly
and
the
other
one
didn't,
and
he
said
the
other
one
had
a
river
running
through
it.
I
said,
and
the
Word
was
passed
down
to
the
generations
that
people
actually
were
able
to
catch
fish
in
that,
and
that
was
the
difference
between
survival
and
up.
No,
that's
that's
oral
tradition,
whether
there's
anything
to
it
or
not.
A
A
B
Yeah
but
the
the
data
that
I
used,
for
that
was
this.
There
are
various
real
wage
indices
and
what
they
do
is
they
just
take
an
agricultural
laborers
and
wages,
be
them
daily
rates
or
weekly
rates
or
whatever,
and
then
divide
by
a
cost
of
living
index,
and
that's
a
very
simple
has
problems
of
like
all
these
things.
But
it's
a
simple
way
of
seeing
whether
living
standards
are
improving
or
are
getting
worse
and
for
both
Agricultural
and
urban
labors.
B
A
And
and
Ireland
been
such
an
agrib-based
Society
actually
probably
was
good.
That
is
a
good
reference
source,
so
they
used
because
you
know
I
just
want
to
mention.
Do
Emma
and
John
want
to
ask
anything
if
you,
if
you
just
since
you're
there
in
the
background,
you're
welcome
to
unmute
yourself
sorry,
but
but
do
you
have
anything
else
there
to
add
Jared?
No,
no!
No!
A
A
A
A
B
Yeah,
that's
something:
I
was
looking
at
over
the
last
few
years
and
that's
the
map
I
I
posted,
so
you
can
see
over
the
second
half
of
the
well.
This
is
before
the
farmer
19
1830s.
You
start
to
see
the
Irish
Rail
Network
growing
and
by
the
the
start
of
the
20th
century.
There's
Railway
stations
all
over
the
place.
I
think
the
the
average
distance
was
down
to
a
very
small
amount.
B
A
And
they're
here
is
asked
that
we're
wondering
what
the
disability
rate
of
people
was
then
is
there
any
data
I
think
we'd
previously
spoken
Jordan
an
earlier
night
in
relation
to
well
I.
Suppose
someone
called
asylums
thorbent.
You
know
hospitals
for
in
most
tones,
but
there's
no
data
as
such
around
you.
B
A
It's
because,
like
so
many
people
back,
then
what
I
had
well,
what
we
would
see
today
is
mine,
minor,
maybe
even
physical
ailments
which
can
be
corrected
through
certain
medical
interventions
or
you
know,
and
they
would
put
an
asylum
as
a
result,
whereas
today
you
know
thing,
you
know
yeah,
it's
it's
it.
It
comes
back
to
a
lot
of
how
things
have
been
before
defined,
especially
people
had
a
physical
immobility
would
have
impacted,
maybe
their
employability.
D
D
D
Well,
are
you
looking
at
statistical
information?
All
right
I
mean
if
you're
looking
at
information
on
on
the
emergence
of
dispensaries
and
and
the
asylums?
Well
then,
yes,
you
would
be
looking
at
the
registered
papers
and
in
the
National
Archives,
but
you
also
have
then
medical
journals,
emerging
and
Ulster
from
Dublin
from
the
techniques
1830s
or
so
onwards.
So
there'd
be
information
in
there
as
well
and
obviously
then
one
of
the
big
sources
for
for
that
type
of
material
is
newspapers.
You
know
an
ideal
course
now.